On either side of these monads there will be an element in which the stable pattern contains either two too many or two too few. These are known to chemists as "dyads," and these, too, are chemically active. Oxygen, for instance, on the one hand, and, say, calcium on the other, combining to form lime. Or instead of calcium we might choose magnesium as an example; for it is well known to burn; that is, to combine brilliantly with oxygen.

And so on. The whole series can be dealt with in this way, and the chemical and other properties more or less explained.

Constitution of the Universe. — A great deal more might be said about the discoveries which have been made concerning the structure of atoms, for not only have the electrons been counted; their orbits have been measured, their rapidity of motion ascertained, and the laws of their radiation made out. But to expound this would need a treatise, and what I have said must suffice. It is clear that we have made great strides toward understanding the constitution of the atoms of matter, of which all the infinite material universe is composed.

First, we have the absolutely continuous ether. Then we detect specialized specks in it, the electrons and the protons. Then these combine or group themselves into the atoms of matter. Then these form chemical molecules. And the molecules aggregate themselves into the visible bodies that appeal to our senses, and with which we are so familiar that we forget the wonder underlying it all. The visible and tangible masses aggregate still further under gravitation into planets and suns. And the suns are

so immense, their atomic jostlings are so intense, that they send out powerful and continuous radiation into the ether, which, falling upon the planets, keeps them warm and enables the processes of vegetation to go on.

Under this stimulus, therefore, the molecular aggregates no longer form only inorganic materials. They begin to group themselves into still more complex structures, and build themselves up into a material known as protoplasm. And then, mysteriously, -at least mysteriously to our present knowledge, a new phenomenon occurs. The protoplasm becomes, as it were, self-moving, no longer driven only by external forces, but exerting its own forces; crawling about, it may be; assimilating other materials and building them up into its own structure; not, like crystals, dependent on the kind of food supplied, but being able to utilize all manner of food, and yet building up its own well defined and characteristic body. This mysterious phenomenon, which makes its appearance when the organic molecules have attained sufficient complexity, and when they are stimulated by ether waves as received from the sun or other luminous body, is called "life," the lower kind vegetable life, the higher kind animal life. And the animal life can not only assimilate food and grow; it can, when grown sufficiently, split into two, and then again into two, and thus increase in number. We see the beginning of what is called reproduction, which de velops again into many and various forms.

All this seems to lend itself to the process of evolution. So that no longer life is limited to the simple cells with which it began, but the cells

themselves can aggregate together into large structures, just as the molecules did. And so, in the course of ages, at length appears the wonderful variety of animal life which we know of on this planet, culminating, let us say, in the oak, the eagle, and the horse.

Nor does the process of evolution stop there. The higher stages of life, for some reason which we can only dimly guess, begin to show purposiveness. They seek their food, escape from danger; they have become sensitive to all manner of influences. They have some foresight; they prepare nests for the young; they collect food in advance; they have some inkling of the future. They are more than mechanical; they exhibit the rudiments of what we know as mind.

And then this mind still further develops, giving the creatures which possess it an advantage over the rest of their kind. And in time it becomes consciousness, clearness of apprehen

sion, and a sense of free will, a power of choice, a knowledge of good and evil; and man begins his strenuous

career.

So now at length the Power-whatever it may be which has gone laboriously and patiently through all these early stages, and which has conducted the process of evolution to its present stage of development, begins to be rewarded by the existence of a creature which has the beginnings of sympathy and understanding, which is able to help and to guide evolution along further and unknown paths; a creature which is beginning to be conscious of its own destiny, and which is able to worship the Power which has brought it into existence, and to feel in the deep recesses of its nature something of a fellow-feeling and kinship and love both for the Creator and for the fellow-creatures which, like itself, are the outcome of all this planning and effort-the fruit of this marvelously beautiful universe.

taking the gold-dust from Sebastian Bay to the transport Vellarina it was known from Cape Horn to Gallegos that the sailor had turned highway

man.

Other tales were told. He had stolen thirty horses in a bunch, he had raided the storehouse in the little settlement, he had cried, "Stand and deliver!" to Ropper the Magnificent and robbed him of his diamonds. So men were excited to admiration and imitation, and the Governor of Punta Arenas offered a substantial reward for the arrest of "el Americano, Potter, salteador de caminos," and every Chilean, every Argentine, was on the watch.

It was a hawk-faced fellow, an officer named Lopez, who had the fortune to capture Bill, and it was by the merest chance that he landed with seven men, from a whale-boat, a little to the north of Cape Nombre in the early morning of June 6, 1895. The party was attached to the Sebastian Bay outfit, though their excursion was in the nature of a pleasure trip, the day, according to the notion of Señor Lopez, being unusually promising for the time of the year.

They came upon Bill Potter in a well grassed vega, a great triangular piece of land wedged between sea and high baranca, and it came out afterward

rest and mend. Certainly, it was a thousand chances to one that any one would happen upon that particular place in all Tierra del Fuego; but the unlikely happened.

When the boat landed, Bill was barefoot, searching for shell-fish and edible seaweed. A ridge of rock hid him from the party, and he knew nothing of the presence of men there until he heard the pistol crack, for the hawkfaced officer, with either great sapience and presence of mind or else from a natural lust for killing, shot the horse as soon as he set eyes on it. Hearing the shot, Bill went running, and, seeing the officer with his revolver and the men clustered a little in the rear, at once knew himself to be in desperate case. So he made for the baranca, seeking escape by climbing; but bullets began to pepper about him. Being a wise man, he stood stock-still and threw up his hands. A onesided parley followed, Bill being ignorant of Spanish, and at the end the hawk-faced officer removed his glasses and wiped them carefully, then made a long speech in his hard, emphatic voice, from which Bill gathered that he was called upon to surrender.

Bill Potter stared at him steadily for a while, then said:

"What else is there in thunder to

do? It's eight to one, and me I ain't got gun or nothin'."

So the officer gave a signal, and three of the men approached Bill. Seeing that, Potter said indignantly, "But all the same, you need n't think I 'm going to be manhandled," and started to walk in the direction of the boat, calling, as he went, to the officer to send a man up the beach for his shoes and things.

To the request the officer paid no heed. Having reached the boat, Bill cocked a weather eye over the sky, then with deliberation took out his pipe and filled it. There was some mixed talking among the capturing party.

"Look 'e," said Bill, nodding darkly, "if you fellers want to get to Sebastian Bay with dry skins, you'd better walk, if I know mutton from goat." He pointed, as he spoke, to a sulphurous-looking cloud in the southeast, and, by way of making his meaning clear, traced a jagged line in the air with his knotted, stubby forefinger. "See here. Bad weather 's brewing, boys," he added, shaking his head and frowning.

But to them, landsmen all, weather signs meant nothing, and the lurid sky with dark, ragged clouds told no tale. True, they saw that the wind was rising, but, after all, the shelter of Sebastian Bay was only a few miles on the other side of the rocky point that jutted far out to the south. Hearing Bill's objection, Lopez regarded him for a moment with mild distaste, then turned to his men, bent on overriding the bad man's obstacles. One man, blustering a little, ventured to handle his revolver, and Bill stared at him fixedly with unamiable eyes, whereat the fellow affected ab

clear to the highwayman that there was a concerted insistence everywhere that he could not easily defeat, and time was obviously too short for major controversies.

"Don't you go handlin' that silly thing, hombre," warned Bill, shaking his head in the direction of the man with the revolver; then fearing that his objections might have an appearance of fear, he said no more, but set his shoulder against the bow of the boat, prepared to aid the men in shoving off. shoving off. Then everybody was busy at once, pushing and splashing and talking, eager to be gone. A weak ray of sunlight piercing the flying clouds considerably nerved the officer, who said something about the weather clearing up, and disposed himself in the stern seat, gathering his cloak comfortably about him. With a word of lofty command he motioned Bill to sit in the bows, and the helmsman by his side handed him a carbine.

Getting the boat under way was a difficult business, for the rowers were indifferent seamen, and the freshening wind made a choppy sea. Scorn was writ large on Bill's countenance.

"I tell 'e, 't would be better to land and lay low awhile," suggested Potter, authoritatively, and almost as if he had something to do with the command. Then he added, by way of credentials, "I 'm from Nova Scotia and know something about weather," and waved a hand to the southeast. Finding no response and thinking that the sullen clamor of the waves had drowned his words, and earnestly trying to make his captors understand, he summoned all his Spanish in an effort to explain that heavy weather was imminent. "Mucho viento pretty

damn soon," he roared, and there was a note of exasperation in his voice.

To that the officer paid small attention, disregarding his prisoner with

again. Not for long would he look away from that fast-moving bank of cloud. Lopez said no more then, well knowing the uselessness of a

struggle to enforce his command, and he gripped hard the gunwale; and the boat, feeling the sweep of the wind outside the shelter of the point, plowed into the rising sea.

With a roar the wind came, and rain, too, and sleet and snow, so that in a few minutes hands were numbed and faces stung. What was worse, ineptitude was at the helm, and the boat broached to and shipped a light sea. A seaman would have laughed at it, but the men, half scared, faltered and slackened in their rowing. So up in the bow rose Bill Potter. His tattooed chest was bare, and his yellow hair streamed in the wind and lashed his face.

something of studied insolence, and gave a word of quite needless command. Then backs were bent to the oars, for it required heavy pulling because of the thumping seas, and Cape Nombre seemed to elongate itself, a milky churning disturbance marking the end of the reef. The most sea-ignorant in the boat knew that wide berth had to be given to that welter of water. But pull as they would, what with wind and wave and tide, it seemed to Lopez that they were making no headway. Rather, they seemed to be drifting toward the white danger at the point of the cape. Lopez's eye fell on Bill and he called to him, bidding him take an oar; but to do that the prisoner stoutly refused.

"No, hombre! no! Plenty cuidado for viento," he yelled back in his lame Spanish, and turned his face windward

"Pull! Pull!" he roared, and with open hand struck the man nearest him a thundering blow on the shoulder, calling him a lazy hound. At once the man was galvanized into great activity. But Bill did not sit again. From end to end of the rocking, leaping boat he went, stepping from thwart to thwart, striking this man, threatening that, and, snatching the oar from the steersman, with terrific strokes brought the boat round to head into the wind, roaring and cursing the while. An eye he kept upon the lurid rack of sulphur-edged clouds. But the men were more